MUSIC PREVIEW: Justin Townes Earle returns for two local shows

Earle will be kicking off a 30-date national tour, accompanied by the Canadian Americana band The Sadies, to promote the new album, "Kids in the Street."

By Jay N. Miller/For The Patriot Ledger

Justin Townes Earle – the son of songwriter Steve Earle, and middle-named for his dad’s friend and mentor Townes Van Zandt – loves creating new music, while revering traditional forms.

That dichotomy made his partnership with producer Mike Mogis kind of a perfect pairing for his new album (due out May 26) “Kids in the Street.” Earle has worked in the general Americana vein, fusing country, folk and rock elements in his work, while Mogis is more of a rock guy, but they found plenty of common ground.

Earle will be kicking off a 30-date national tour, accompanied by the Canadian Americana band The Sadies, to promote the new album this week, and it swings through the region next week, with a May 12 date at The Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River, and a May 13 show at The Sinclair in Cambridge.

Performers securing the services of a producer for recording is normally no big deal, but Earle had produced all of his previous albums himself. Mogis is a veteran rock producer, perhaps best known for his work with Bright Eyes. The new album is Earle’s first for the well regarded New West label.

“Being a producer myself was never one of those things I intended – I’m a singer-songwriter,” said Earle from a tour stop in Midland, Texas. “But it was not my idea to have a producer either, it was the record label’s idea, and I fought it. Why do I need to work with a producer on MY tunes, MY art? But I just don’t like rules anyway. Eventually I came around to the idea, and felt like it was time to get outside of my comfort level. It was also good to get outside of Nashville, where if you don’t like, or agree with, the way a musician is playing something, you can just toss them because there’s 20 more sitting around ready to go.

“So I went to Omaha, met Mike, and made this album with a different producer and different players,” said Earle. “As an artistic move it was actually more rewarding.”

The new album has a variety of different styles, united by Earle’s clear baritone vocals and evocative writing. Styles range from the thumping, full-bore rocker “Champagne Corolla” to the classic country two-step “What She’s Crying For” to the broad dynamics of the soul ballad “There Go A Fool.”

But perhaps nothing illustrates Earle’s desire to meld old and new better than “Same Old Stagolee,” a riveting re-working of the old classic (often spelled as “Stagger Lee”) that goes way back to folk-blues giant Leadbelly. It is the classic blues tale of romantic rivalry, betrayal, and tragic violence, but Earle has updated it with contemporary lyrics. He keeps the dazzling fingerpicked acoustic guitar work of the tune’s original versions, even as he places the story in a modern inner city milieu.

“I have always like carrying on that kind of tradition,” said Earle. “There are probably 1,000 versions of that song, and now I’ve added another. If you listen to Leadbelly’s take, it is quite slow, but then if you listen to (country star) Ray Price’s, his is really quite fast, so it can go all over the place. But those lyrics have never been updated, beyond him getting that Stetson hat knocked off his head. I took all those old-timey details and updated them, to where Stagolee is now a crack dealer, and he talks to a girl from the top of the hill, while he’s a guy from the bottom of the hill. Now there’s a low-rise apartment building, and a motel in the story, and a guy from the top of the hill who resents Stagolee talking to the girl. It is an update, but the story continues, and you realize all those problems people have with each other keep repeating themselves.”

A much more fun, or at least much less dark song on the new CD is “15-25,” which brings out the kind of New Orleans flavor that lets you know Earle loves that city and its music.

“That song is absolutely my musical tribute to New Orleans,” said Earle, 35, “and I should probably include my apologies to Professor Longhair for stealing his thing. I wanted to do a song with ‘kind of’ a New Orleans sound, and I realized you can’t do ‘kind of’ New Orleans – it’s all or nothing. There’s no way to tiptoe around that feel, and even Paul Simon never found a way to adapt that style to his own; when he does a Cajun song, it’s just flat out Cajun.”

As far as evoking the past in new ways, “If I Was the Devil” is a delectable acoustic blues, dark and ominous, but redeemed by the sheer beauty of Earle’s acoustic guitar work and vocal.

“That song came after I had read this great biography of the old bluesman, Skip James,” Earle explained. “Skip James had this song, “I’d Rather be The Devil,” that came up a lot in his life, almost a signature tune for him, adding to his mystery. I wanted to do something that said, ‘maybe he was the devil.’ So that song is essentially me trying to embody Skip James, and extend that metaphor.

“It’s like Bob Dylan in the 1960s,” Earle added. “He said he was not inventing anything new, but just dealing with existing forms and ideas. Our job is to partially help continue this folk tradition, and I don’t want to see that die, or people like Skip James be forgotten. I know, for example, I would not be who I was, if at age 11 I had not watched MTV’s ‘Nirvana Unplugged’ program, and heard Kurt Cobain do a song that stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t one of his songs – it was a Leadbelly song, not Nirvana’s – but it changed my view of what made good music completely.”

There is one cover on the album, a hidden track, which is a lovely acoustic take on Simon’s “Graceland.” Earle felt that song has a message that needs to be emphasized these days.

“I think in a time like this, of violent shifts and changes in our world and our lives, Paul Simon’s song basically says ‘change is unstoppable, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop looking for the heart in our lives and fellow humans,” said Earle. “I think if anything, we are losing our grip on the heart and soul these days, and focusing too much on the changes.”

Earle has toured with a backup band before, and also as a solo act, but joining forces with the Sadies, acclaimed in their own right, makes for a superb double-bill. They will open the shows, and then serve as Earle’s backing band.

“We met years ago, and we are both Bloodshot Records alumni,” Earle said of The Sadies. “I think it was 10 or 12 years ago, when we met at a festival in Portland (Oregon), and we’ve been looking for an excuse to tour together ever since. When it turned out that we could work out our schedules for this tour, it was “Hallelujah!” The other night, we just played on a bill with Son Volt, and The Sadies and Son Volt was like an Americana dream to me. But I don’t think anybody could find me a better band than The Sadies.”

Earle continued: “I do play my songs differently than on record when I’m performing solo, so it does take me a minute to go back to the band versions. But a great band like The Sadies can adapt quickly. I’ll throw stuff at those guys from Otis Redding to Buck Owens, and even some Gordon Lightfoot, but as a real live band, they genuinely can play anything.” JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE 8 p.m. May 12 at the Narrows Center for the Arts, 16 Anawan St #1, Fall River, $37, $42. 508-324-1926, www.narrowscenter.org; 7:30 p.m. at the Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. $25-$30, 617-547-5200, www.sinclaircambridge.com